Assessment Task

1

 

Outcome(s) Covered

1

 

ü       Assessment Task Instructions

 

Read the text and complete the following tasks. You may present a written or a taped oral response.

 

1.         Demonstrate your understanding of the text by identifying the key points and important supporting details in a summary of the text which is about one third to one quarter of the length of the original.

2.         Suggest the intended purpose(s) of the writer and the intended readers of the text, giving some detail to support your answer.

3.         How effective is the text in meeting the suggested purpose(s) of the writer and the needs of the reader? What do you see as being its main strengths and weaknesses?

Comment in detail in terms of its:

l         Format

l         Language

l         Structure

l         Layout

 

 

 

 

What you should know about public opinion research

 

‘Public Opinion’ means the expressed views of a group of people about issues of common interest or concern. The relevant public is most often considered to be the adult citizenry of a political unit such as a town, or a nation. However, one may also speak of neighborhood public opinion, public opinion within various subgroups of a population, or even world public opinion.

 

Political leaders early recognized the need for some means of knowing what people were thinking and saying. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln once said: “what I want to get done is what the people desire to have done, and the question for me is how to find that out exactly.” British historian James Bryce wrote in 1888: “The obvious weakness of government by public opinion is the difficulty of ascertaining it.” Efforts to accurately ascertain public opinion have long presented a challenge to politicians and public opinion researchers.

 

By far the biggest users of public opinion research are business and industry. Many companies have their own research departments or combine the function with advertising or marketing. Their interest’s range from attempts to measure the effects of their advertising, to controlled tests of new products, or to efforts to understand and improve their public image. Newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters use surveys to ascertain the opinions as well as the size and characteristics of their audiences. Another group of survey users are private foundations, voluntary agencies, sociologists, and political scientists. Their interest is usually in broad social trends, in the determinants of social decisions and in the structure and effects of the opinion process itself.

 

Critics often argue that surveying methods are subject to bias because it all depends on how you ask the question. Furthermore, how does one know that people are telling the truth? No doubt, these are difficulties that must be addressed in the design of the survey. Clearly, the proliferation of surveys has brought with it problems of quality and standards. In a free market, anyone can sell survey services, and price competition usually ensures the adoption of bare minimum survey standards. Similarly, there are no legal barriers to the widespread release of spurious survey data based on poorly worded questions or biased samples. Becoming an informed consumer of public opinion research can help you assess the value and validity of the data you encounter.

 

The first questions you should ask when evaluating poll results are: “who conducted the poll?” and “who paid for it?” The biases of a poll’s sponsors can be reflected in its design—skewing results. Next, you should ask, “who was polled?” Public opinion research seeks to understand the opinion of an entire group by asking questions of a scientifically constructed sample of the group. Critical to understanding any poll data is knowing what group was sampled. Are the opinions reported those of all adults, all parents or just those with school-age children? To be statistically valid, the sample itself must be randomly selected and of adequate size. In general, the larger the size of the sample, the smaller the margin of error. The margin of error should be 5% or less.

 

You should also examine the wording of the questions and the timing of the survey. Were the questions worded in a bias or leading manner? Certain words or sentence structures could improperly suggest the pollster’s preferred answer. The poll’s results can also be affected by the order in which questions are asked and the order in which choices are presented. Did the survey solicit an opinion on a particular topic soon after the occurrence of a related even? An example would be conducting a survey on air safety a week after a major air disaster. The results might reveal more about the public’s emotional response to the disaster than about their long-term beliefs regarding the dangers of flying.

 

Good public opinion research can be invaluable to assessing the opinions and preferences of the public. Poor public opinion research can mislead users and severely reduce the public’s confidence in the survey process. Anyone who plans to rely on poll results—businessmen, advocates, journalists, consumers, or members of the general public, for instance—need to be able to tell the difference to help them determine how much weight any given poll research should be given.

ü       Deadline

The last class on week 7 is the due day.

No points will be accounted for Extensions and late assignments, and you will not pass this unit.

 

ü       Presentation of written work

·                All written work must be submitted on A4 (21 cm x 29.7 cm) sized paper.

·                Please write on one side of the paper only.

·                Leave a 4 cm margin on the left-hand side for marker’s comments.

·                Double-spaced is preferred.

·                Your work need to be typed

·                Each page should be numbered in one continuous sequence in the top right-hand corner.  Commence numbering from the page following the title page.  Print your last name at the top of each page.

·                All sheets should be stapled together at the top left-hand corner.

·                Do not embellish the paper with a cover.  Put the cover page on top of the work.  This should give your full name and local address, your student number, the title, paper coordinator, the paper, assignment number and paper title.

 

 

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